Ratings Key

★★★★ = Excellent. The best the genre has to offer.★★★1/2 = Very Good. Perhaps not "perfect," but undoubtedly a must-see.★★★ = Good. Accomplishes what it sets out to do and does it well.★★1/2 = Fair. Clearly flawed and nothing spectacular, but competently made. OK entertainment.★★ = Mediocre. Either highly uneven or by-the-numbers and uninspired.★1/2 = Bad. Very little to recommend.★ = Very Bad. An absolute chore to sit through.NO STARS! = Abysmal. Unwatchable dreck that isn't even bad-movie amusing.SBIG = So Bad It's Good. Technically awful movies with massive entertainment value.

Monday, September 23, 2013

Terrifying Tales (1989)

Directed by:Paul BunnellArmand GarabidianEphraim Schwartz

It was a common practice in the 80s to
combine unrelated short subjects filmed independently of one another to
create feature-length horror anthologies for release onto video. Some
added new framing scenes, while others just simply strung the shorts
together and left it at that. The most widely seen of these were probably
the two Stephen King's Night Shift Collection tapes, but there was
also CREEPTALES (1989), CINEMAGIC: FRIGHT SHOW (1986), Tales from
the Third Dimension (1985), Tales of the Unknown (1990) and
others. Some even recycled the same shorts. The misleadingly-titled
Terrifying Tales contains three independently-produced shorts running about 20
minutes apiece. Only one of the three; Paul Bunnell's "Final Destination:
Unknown" (copyrighted 1989), is actually horror. The other two; Armand
Garabidian's "Ten Seconds to Countdown" (copyrighted 1986) and Ephraim
Schwartz's "Creatures of Habit" (also 1986), are, respectively, science
fiction and drama with only slight mystery components. The three used here
are connected only in that they were shorts made by UCLA graduate
students. Sadly, none of them is very good. The opening title screens and
closing credits have been left intact for each.

In "Ten Seconds," set in the near future (2025), a young woman (Christine
Warner) flees her home and ends up in the desert. A white van with a
giant bug on top seems to be following her around so she ducks into a bar
where a man is playing pool and asks him for a lift. The guy, who has an
emotionless scowl on his face and refuses to talk, grabs his NASA jacket
and they're off. The girl claims the guy following her is her father and
the van shows up again to try to run them off the road. After the man
shoots the van's driver mid-chase, the girl becomes leery of him and his
strange behavior. She burns him with a lighter, the two get into a
struggle and end up in a chase through the desert. Things end aboard a
spaceship. The director, who'd go on to make episodes of the Mighty
Morphin Power Rangers series, also wrote, produced and did the
miniature sets and animation. V.V. Dachin Hsu (who'd later direct
the decent vampire film Pale Blood) also contributed to the special
effects. There's some showoff camerawork, like the camera on a pool table
following the balls around. Rating: ★★

Next up is Paul Bunnell's "Final Destination: Unknown," which also has
scenes filmed along a desert highway. Psycho hitchhiker Sonny Blake (Andrew
Magarian), who's garnered the nickname "The Roadside Strangler" for
his crimes, strangles another young woman to death after she gives him a
lift and leaves her body in her car on the side of the road. After leaving
the scene, an older man shows up and offers Sonny a ride. The man - Mr.
Godfrey (Jeffrey Culver aka James R. Sweeney) - takes him back to his home for lunch,
where he meets the man's daughter Angela (Lisa Fuller), who looks
exactly like the girl he's just murdered. Of course, Mr. Godfrey and
Angela aren't who they claim to be. This is even weaker that the first
story, with uneven editing, sound recording and photography, and is all
rather predictable. Bunnell (who also shot, co-wrote and edited) appears
to have ditched directing to concentrate on acting. All three of the main
actors went on to act in other films. Rating: ★1/2

They're supposed to save the best for last, but can Ephraim Schwartz's
"Creatures of Habit" save the day? Short answer: No. This is even more
confusing than the first story. Coroner Dr. Malcolm Rutledge (George
Dickerson) shows up at a crime scene where someone has been stabbed.
There's no body and the only witness to the crime is hooker Jennie (Linda
Nichols) who doesn't seem to want to talk about anything. Feeling
sympathy toward her, Malcolm spends the night at her apartment and a
weird, one-armed guy named Charlie (Craig Dalton) wanders in later that
night. Charlie has bouts of anger, may be retarded, may be faking being
retarded just to get out of the army, may have killed someone and keeps
talking about potatoes. Malcolm abandons his wife Johanna (Suzanne
Hartman) and starts staying with Linda, telling her "I need to know
everything about you... what kind of tampons you use... everything." This
boring, extremely confusing and darkly lit drama is hardly "terrifying"
and doesn't belong in this collection at all. Boasting a 1986 copyright
date, it appears to have actually been filmed in the late 70s or very
early 80s. Lead Dickerson went on to appear in Psycho 2 (1983),
David Lynch's Blue Velvet (1986) and others. Rating: ★

Platinum Productions and MNTEX Entertainment both released this on VHS
in the states and both companies put it in a box with a skeleton
on it.

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